Wine: Domaine Chandon turns 40

Domaine Chandon was established in the Napa Valley 40 years ago, an anniversary that fans of California bubbly will probably want to toast. But the influence of this French-owned winery extends far beyond sparkling wine.

Certainly it helped pave the way for other foreign-owned sparkling wine houses in California. But the fact that Moet Hennessy, a major French wine company -- the French ruled the wine world in those days -- had made such a large investment in the Napa Valley also conferred instant credibility on that still-fledgling wine area.

"The critical thing is that it was the first French investment in the Napa Valley," says Matt Wood, Domaine Chandon's estate director. The move, he adds, meant "there's something special about the Napa Valley."

"There was a great deal of buzz that a French company -- a French company of that magnitude -- was taking an interest in the Napa Valley," says Dawnine Dyer, who went on to become the longtime winemaker at Chandon.

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Moet Hennessy wanted to expand, and expansion in Champagne, which is a limited area, was difficult. The company already had a sparkling wine operation in Argentina and in 1968 started looking into making bubbly in California. After deciding that the Napa Valley was the right place, the company established M&H Vineyards, and renamed it Domaine Chandon in 1973. The new company assembled some land: 200 acres on Mount Veeder, 550 acres in Carneros and 350 acres in Yountville, where a winery was to be built. Winemakers from Moet & Chandon made some experimental wines that year, working at Trefethen Winery. The first commercial vintage was assembled in 1974.

The winery and visitor facility opened to the public in 1977 with an important feature: the Restaurant at Domaine Chandon, now called Etoile. Napa Valley may be a land of high-end restaurants now, but in the mid-1970s, fine dining was virtually nonexistent there.

"Putting the restaurant there was a pretty major deal," says Dyer, who was hired at Chandon in 1976 and served as winemaker from 1978 to 1999.

Wood says that some big players in the valley who invested in subsequent years have told him that the restaurant was important to their decision. "It turned Napa into the complete package," he says.

There's no question that the establishment of Domaine Chandon helped spawn a California sparkling wine revolution. There was some bubbly in California produced in the traditional methode champenoise -- Schramsberg was established in 1965 at a winery that dates to the 1860s -- but the success of Chandon opened the floodgates. Foreign investment in the 1980s led to ventures such as Roederer Estate, Mumm Napa Valley, Taittinger's Domaine Carneros and Gloria Ferrer, which is part of Spain's Freixenet empire. "There was an infusion and interest in sparkling wine in the United States," Dyer says.

Dyer, who now owns Dyer Vineyards with her husband, Bill, and is a partner in Meteor Vineyards, also cites some technical innovations that the French brought to Napa, such as picking grapes into half-ton bins, rather than the 5-ton gondolas that had been commonly used, and how white grapes are pressed.

Although Chandon was founded as a sparkling wine house, it released still versions of pinot noir and pinot meunier, two of the grapes of Champagne, in the late 1990s. The current release of pinot noir, 2010 ($35), is dark, spicy and structured, with black raspberry fruit and good concentration. The 2011 pinot meunier ($35) is a little lighter on its feet, with lively berry and a slight leafy note.

There was a period of time when I felt that the sparkling wines fell a little short of those produced by Chandon's competitors. But when I tasted the current releases toward the end of last year, I felt that Chandon had regained its stride. The nonvintage Chandon Brut Classic ($22) is creamy, with citrus and apple fruit and a fine texture, while the nonvintage Chandon Brut Rosé ($22) is delicate, with subtle red fruit and some creaminess. These wines are often available at a considerable discount.